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Tom’s Guide
Tom’s Guide
Technology
Malcolm McMillan

'Slow Horses' just got a worrying development ahead of season 5

Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in "Slow Horses" season 4 on Apple TV Plus (2024).

"Slow Horses" season 5 officially marks the end of an era for the Apple TV Plus spy thriller.

Showrunner Will Smith revealed to Deadline that he's leaving the show at the end of season 5. Which, since that season has now entered the post-production phase of its life cycle, means his time with the show has come to an end, and probably has been over for a while now.

“There were certainly some private tears,” the writer told Deadline. “Series [season] 5, it doesn’t end things by any means, but it concludes certain story arcs that started in season 1, so it felt like a good moment to hand over the show.”

In retrospect, we already had some hints that this news was coming. When Apple announced "Slow Horses" season 6, the press release didn't mention Smith anywhere. But given that his comments at the time indicated plenty more of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb was to come, nobody batted an eye.

But when Apple also left Smith's name out of the season 7 announcement, that caught some people's attention, myself included. Still, it was brushed aside as Smith simply stepping back on the writing of that season, rather than away from the show entirely.

(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

Still, it seems Smith has the right perspective on the situation. "I do want to emphasize, it’s not in any way that I thought I’m now too good for 'Slow Horses,'" he stated.

"It’s much more that I want to keep being good enough for 'Slow Horses.' And I would never want it to be like, 'Oh, that one wasn’t quite there.' It’s just that risk of just pushing it too far. And I just felt, I just want to go when I know I’m still delivering my very, very best for all the people that work on the show.”

I'm optimistic 'Slow Horses' survives Smith's departure

Look, there's no beating around the bush: Smith was not Slough House material. He was at the top of his game, unlike the sometimes bumbling rejects or washed-up spies he wrote about. He even finally took home an Emmy last year for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.

So losing him could not just be the end of an era for the show — it could mark the beginning of the show's decline.

However, I'm hopeful for two reasons. First, with all due respect to Smith, "Slow Horses" is an adaptation, meaning that the source material that originally developed this world and these characters remains unchanged. This isn't like when Benioff and Weiss went off script in "Game of Thrones."

Second, Smith has clearly been out of the lead role for a while now, but is only just revealing the news. That leads me to believe that he and the show's production team have a plan in place and people they trust to continue the work at the same caliber once Smith is gone.

If it were any other show, I'd be gravely concerned. But "Slow Horses" is such a finely tuned machine — producing three seasons at any given time — that I'm going to trust they know what they are doing until I'm proven otherwise.

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